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As a small-business owner, it can be hard to find the time to do
the sorts of activities that help tone the brain's innovation
muscles -- activities like committing to a six-month course of
study; making it to weekly networking
meetings at your local business club or engaging in nightly
journaling and tinkering. These activities take up a lot of time.
But you don't need a lot of time to keep your creative muscle
working.

It's possible to boost your brain power constantly and on-the-go,
by incorporating brain-boosting and creativity increasing
activities into your daily routine. Here are three activities I
recommend to busy entrepreneurs:

1. Give your ideas a home. There are simple
tools that make noticing and collecting fresh ideas and
inspiration easy when you are out and about, reading newspapers
and magazines or surfing the web. From the low-tech pad and pen
to Evernote, a capturing software available on iPhone, Mac, PC,
mobile phones, and Firefox, simply jotting down ideas wherever
you are gives your inspiration a place to live. Software like
Evernote syncs these notes to your other devices. Similarly,
Backpack is a "to-do list" application with a lot of flexibility
that makes capturing data and thoughts easy. A dashboard widget
lets you see Backpack items on your desktop. Give yourself 30
minutes to an hour each week to review what you've collected and
you might be surprised by what ideas you've come up with.

2. Travel by foot. We all need to go places
during the day. Why not make one trip on foot, if possible?
Research shows that even a 20-minute stroll can clear your head
and make room for fresh ideas. Many of our most productive ideas
come not while we're trying to force them out in the office, but
when we're away from our desks. A clinical study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
showed those engaged in walking demonstrate a net increase in
the efficiency of the connections within the brain's
structures. And why not make an event out of your
walk? John P. Trougakos, assistant management professor
at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School
of Management, recommends people take dedicated lunch breaks
daily as a way to recharge not just with nutrition, but with a
change of scene as well.

3. Interact with stimulating people and places.
Happy hour drinks may seem like a trivial part of office culture,
but it's a great way to interact with other people in a causal,
low-stress setting. If you work for yourself, you might even
consider setting up your own happy hour where you visit a local
cafe or bar (don't drink too much) around 5 or 6 p.m. for 45
minutes or an hour with the sole purpose of engaging with others.
A Harvard-based study suggests that sharing
information about ourselves fires up the pleasure centers of
our brains.More brain activity means more creativity!